2005 New Brunswick Provincial Championships

By Eric Goss

The first weekend in June saw cyclists from all over the Maritimes gather in Campbellton, New Brunswick for the 2005 NB provincial MTB - Downhill Championships. Sun shone strong on the northern NB venue situated at Sugarloaf Mountain. Campbellton is arguably the best stop on the NB circuit as shown by the past decade of absolutely stellar events that have been hosted there. Donald Dumas and Chris Day from the Xtreme Bike Shop never fail to organize and host only the most exciting of events. And this past weekend was certainly on par.

Many riders showed up on Friday to enjoy a full day of training on the steep dusty course and to hone their tight singletrack skills. Saturday was a completely wild day, as in conjunction with the Provincial Championships, there was a motocross freestyle big air competition in the pits. Pro freestyle jumpers were busting ridiculous moves over an 80 foot ramp to dirt gap. One of the highlights from that was one of the riders pulling crazy tricks over the gap... on a 4-wheeler! DH training runs happened in rapid succession allowing riders to watch and take part in the madness. Even with the barrage of moto jumps, burnout competitions, RC car and boat antics, skate park and BMX jumps most riders were able to crack off a dozen training runs on the track. 1500 spectators were on hand to cheer athletes on and party to the bands playing on the stage setup right at the base of the hill. If that wasn't enough, folks could sample RedBull product as they had a full team of support crew on hand.

Once that dust cleared, the mountain bikers took their turn at turning some up. Sunday morning was the last chance for racers to dial in their lines and to find the happy medium between going fast and not pinballing off trees the whole way down. 50 riders lined up at the start and went off to lay down the fastest time they could in a "best of two run" format. Fast run of the day was posted by Eric Goss (Giant Bicycles Canada) and followed closely by Geoff Pendrel (Devinci / Daredevil / Back Door Bikes) and Francois LeBlanc "Frank the Tank" (Mike's Bike Shop) to round out the top three in the open / elite category. The junior category saw Matt Boudreau (Radical Edge) edge Dylan Gullison (Danger Boy / Radical Edge) for the provincial title. Both young rippers posted super fast times and were noted to be riding extremely well. Watch out!

The event closed on a super good note and riders are now looking forward to a fun- filled summer of MTB racing.

Race Notes:

John McNair who recently opened a bike shop in Sussexx, NB (Back Door Bikes) closed up shop for the weekend and posted a stellar time on a hardtail in the open elite category.

Saturday night at the campground was one of the best "keep it real" evenings in recent memory.

Geoff Pendrel took some time out of his Canada Cup tour to show up and rip it up. He was caught smiling ear to ear several times but never ended up finding "Trixie".

Pat Storey (mullet) raced to completely McGyver the main pivot of his Balfa and did some smooth talking to the Commissaires to let him do the race. Pat took second place in the Cadet category and oh yeah, he had absolutely no rear brakes.

Posted by bikergrl at June 7, 2005 04:55 PM

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